Film

Reviews

SPORIS tilOl’lt) THE BABE

(PG) 110min (Univeisal DVD retaill OOO

A curious piece of trma related to this John Goodmanstarring Babe Ruth liiopic is that director Arthur

l liller il ove Sterv. Out/zigcmls lortunei became president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences a year after it ‘.'.'as made: foui years later he had quit the

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role to direct Joe Es/terhas' anti Hollywood satire Burn l l<>ll}W()()(l Burn. which he later disowned. Whatever the reasons for this sea change. 1992's The Babe

aspiies towards the peak of worthy. Academy-friendly cinema, comprising both an epic story and a nostalgic reflection upon the American Dream. but sadly has neither the guile nor the subtlety to step fully out of the TV mOVie camp.

Still. Goodman is well cast as the brash. childlike. essentially warm hearted orphan and baseball legend Ruth (despite haying to. rather unfeasibly. portray him from the ages of IE) to 40). while his partying and

RUSS MEYER VIXENS TRILOGY BOX SET

(18) 341 min

(Arrow Films DVD retail) 0...

Meyer’s peculiar strand of erotic cinema has always been marked by his particular predilection for his own subject matter - it was always fairly clear that he was trying to work through his own sexual obsessions. Meyer, the curious, boob-obsessed, highly singular auteur from Oakland, California belonged to that most select and interesting of erotic filmmakers from the 60$ and 705 - Tinto Brass in Italy, Walerian Borowczyk in Poland and Jose Bénazéraf in France. From his late 19505 (The Immoral Mr Teas), through to his mid-19605 work (Lorna, Mudhoney), and onto Vixen, Supevixens and Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens (the three films in this excellent extras heavy box set), Meyer’s cinema was marked by an obsession with big tits and the great outdoors. If you are new to Meyer’s work you can expect loads of low-angle and side elevation shots of massive mammaries and long shots of couples copulating in the open air. To put Meyer’s oeuvre in perspective, I feel it helps to compare his work to the similarly big breasts and bum-obsessed Brass to see a completely different sensibility at work. Where Tinto generally likes Chiaroscuro lighting and furtive grapplings in side alleys, Russ’ work is closer to a naturist tradition of nakedness over nudity. Not one and the same according to art critic John Berger in Ways of Seeing: ‘To be naked is to be without disguise. To be nude is to be seen naked by others.’ If Borowczyk, Benazéraf and Brass are filmmakers of ‘nudity’, Meyer for all his kinkiness and despair is at his best when he is being zealous about women getting their kit off. (Tony McKibbin)

\ .1 Loud

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42 THE LIST '3 1’: Jan PHI)“,

womanising is if not graphically receiinted at least not skimmed over. Supporting turns from James Cromwell and Kelly McGillis add some acting class to an otherwise fairly standard history lesson. Minimal extras.

(David Pollock)

WARTIME DRAMA TEA WITH MUSSOLINI PG 117min (Universal DVD rental/retail) COO

Director Franco Zetfirelli commits to celluIOId his semi fictionalised childhood memories of life in the bosom of an all-female British expat community in Florence before and alter the outbreak of the World War II.

By de—emphasising the political in favour of the social. Zetfirelli creates a subtle and. at times. comic portrait of the time. but one that you can't help feeling isn't entirely accurate. It's sentimental and. to a certain extent. emotionally manipulative. but the combined talents of Judi Dench, Maggie Smith. Cher. Lily Tomlin and Joan Plowright provrde the gravitas that is the film's saying grace. No extras. (Kirsty Knaggs)

COMEDY THE RAGE IN PLACID LAKE (15) 88min

(Palace Films. DVD rental/retail) .00.

Thankfully this is not the latest overblown Hollywood disaster action flick, but a rather sweet natured. oft killer,

low-budget Australian comedy about a young man's gentle struggle With conformity. Placid Lake (singer. songwriter Ben Lee) has been so named by feckless hippy parents (hilariously played by Miranda Richar( son and lesser known Garry Macdonald) whose 'sensitive' upbringing has lead to victimisation by the macho jocks who dominate his suburban hometown. A rooftop fall precipitates an epiphany. and Placid smartens up and gets a sOul destroying insurance job in an attempt to 'fit in'_ much to the consternation of his parents and childhood friend Gemma (Rose Byrne). Debut director Tony MacNamara's film treads the same nostalgic territory as Donn/e Da/ko and Napoleon Dynamite but he charmingly balances intelligent writing wrth typically Antipodean crassness that somehow makes this essentially ramshackle production shine. Minimal extras. (Julian Stone)

HORROR SPOOl

l BOUGHT A VAMPIRE MOTORCYCLE (15) 101 min

(MIA DVD retaill

Possibly the most horrifying thing about this 1990 sendup of the Brit horror genre is the fact that it provrded a starring feature role for Neil Morrissey. Noddy (essentially a reprise of the dim- Witted, bike-riding alter ego Rocky that Moirissey played in hit 80s IV show Boo/ii is a charmless cipher for his vampire motorcycle

and an uninspiring script that grinds from silly murder to silly grisly murder. Morrissey's Boon sidekick Michael Elphick and Anthony ‘CBPO' Daniels turn up along the way to help and at least attack their against-type roles With the appropriate mixture of ability and frivolity. What really makes this largely poor film watchable. though. is Dirk Campbell's gleeful direction, which nods to both the lower budget Hammer films and perverse inventiveness of Powell's Peeping Tom. At least the bare bones of a worthwhile spoof are here. Minimal extras. lDavrd Pollock)

HORROR WHISPERING CORRIDORS (15) 105min (Tartan Video DVD rental/retail) 00.

This atmospheric but sluggish Korean ghost story. set in a draconian girls” school haunted by the tragic death of a former pupil and the demons a new teacher (and ex-pupil; unWittingly brings with her. alloy is a penchant for clunky melodrama to cloud what could have been an effectively spooky. if a tad over— familiar tale.

Ultimately an evocative score. stylised camera work. a few chorce moments of old fashioned gore and some genuinely unnervrng performances from the young cast fail fo prevent l'i/liispering Corridors from looking like a dated composite of many superior Japanese films of the same late 90s period Minimal extras.

(Julian Stone)

ALL DVDS WERE REVIEWED ON A SYSTEM SUPPLIED AND INSTALLED BY LOUD 8: CLEAR